Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
mikethemadbiologist
Posts by this author
June 4, 2010
For a while now, I've been arguing that when it comes to lending, caveat mutuor should be a guiding principle. After all, no one held a gun to these guys heads and said, "Make me a shitty loan now!" And these guys were supposed to know how to assess housing loan risk--it's what they do. Well, I…
June 3, 2010
...Apparently, economist Christine Romer thinks so too (italics mine):
...hundreds of thousands of public school teachers are likely to be laid off over the next few months. As many as one out of every 15 teachers could receive a pink slip this summer, the White House Council of Economic Advisers…
June 2, 2010
Well, my Tuesday evening was spent setting up my shiny new MacBook. But I still have links for you. Science:
Japan Plans a Moon Base by 2020, Built by Robots for Robots
Solenodon hunt: On the trail of a 'living fossil'
In E. Coli Fight, Some Strains Are Largely Ignored
Male and female hedgehogs…
June 2, 2010
Despite what Tyler Brûlé writes at The Financial Times. Brûlé writes:
When an e-mail bounces back with: "I'm travelling on business in New York (or Rome, Taipei, São Paulo ...) and will have limited access to e-mail," such messages usually pose the following questions: is this individual…
June 1, 2010
Happy Tuesday. Here are a lot of links from a long weekend. Science:
Scientists Build Case for Undersea Plumes
Attacking Science to Defend Beliefs
When science clashes with beliefs? Make science impotent
Safety Rules Can't Keep Up With Biotech Industry
Gulf oil spill is public health risk,…
June 1, 2010
So I was at the ASM meeting last week, and one of the talks I heard was by Kim Ware about Clostridium difficile infection control: how one hospital learned to contain and prevent outbreaks (Note: these are from my notes; I haven't downloaded the presentation yet). C. difficile is a bacterium…
May 31, 2010
When it comes to war, we should spend more time listening to those who have seen it. With that in mind, I bring you this by Andy Rooney, from last year's Memorial Day:
Amazingly, Rooney received death threats over this piece.
That explains a lot, actually.
May 30, 2010
Every year, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has an annual meeting that covers all topics in microbiology (I'll talk about some of the science next week). It's often in pretty good locations--this year, it was held in San Diego. But attendance has been dropping: a few years ago, over…
May 29, 2010
Having spent most of Thursday travelling from San Diego to Boston, I had the distinct displeasure of watching cable news. First point: it still sucks. But the constant theme was that Obama is on the defensive about the BP oil rig blowout. Sure, it's stupid, although I think Obama was too ready…
May 27, 2010
...assembly and analysis. From the depths of the Mad Biologist's Archives comes this post.
The Wellcome Trust has a very good (and mostly accurate) article about the 'next-gen' sequencing technologies. I'm going to focus on bacterial genomics because humans are boring (seriously, compared to two…
May 26, 2010
Amanda Marcotte has a must-read post about Rand Paul, and why we shouldn't just sweep his libertarianism under the rug. I'll get to Amanda in a bit, but, to explain the title, I want to first provide some context by way of deceased Republican political operative Lee Atwater:
You start out in 1954…
May 25, 2010
Genome Biology recently published a review, "The Case for Cloud Computing in Genome Informatics." What is cloud computing? Well:
This is a general term for computation-as-a-service. There are various different types of cloud computing, but the one that is closest to the way that computational…
May 24, 2010
(Click to embiggen)
Don't worry, I'm not describing Boston Mayor Menino's latest harebrained scheme. Esplanade Magazine, which is some great architecture/real estate porn (and it's free!), describes an effort in 1907, during the heyday of the City Beautiful Movement, to build an island in the…
May 23, 2010
I'm travelling today, so here are some links for you:
Has Obama created a Social Security 'death panel'?
Fear Comes of Age
Rand Paul Loves Socialized Medicine
Infrastructure matters
Revolt of the Wonks: Former Obama Advisors Want To Know What's Happening on His Deficit Commission
"An Intelligent…
May 22, 2010
Some reading to start your weekend. Science:
Friendly bacteria could evict MRSA in nasal turf wars
Evolution is false, the Bible tells me so
Who are the creationists? (by the numbers)
Novel human microbiome genomes unveiled
NIH Human Microbiome Project Researchers Publish First Genomic Collection…
May 22, 2010
Unfortunately, Mark Twain's aphorism, "lies, damn lies, and statistics", has been used so many times that it's become trite. But, as I say repeatedly around these parts, you have to understand your data. A key economic statistic is core inflation, which is estimated by the Federal Reserve's Open…
May 22, 2010
One of the things that bothered me about the 'stimulus' bill (other than it not being called an employment bill) is that there was a focus on things being 'shovel ready.' Not only did this imply that the depression* would be short-term (whereas un-, underemployment, and flat wages are largely…
May 21, 2010
Contrary to what some might think, I'm not opposed to investment bank and bankers, I'm just opposed to the current crop of banks and bankers. But even more than usurious middle men, the guys who really make my head explode are the flat-out speculators--they serve, even on their best days, no…
May 20, 2010
I'll be at the ASM meeting in San Diego next week (so don't steal all my stuff). But don't worry, the blog, like the Might River Jordan, will keep rolling on. Email replies and so on won't be happening though.
May 20, 2010
Thankfully, in principle, it's reversible. The Texas State Board of Education has approved new history standards. Because Texas is a major book buyer, this will have far-reaching effects on the curricula of other states (I haven't been able to find out if this will affect Massachusetts.…
May 19, 2010
We're having a very wet Wednesday. Time for links. Science:
A Piece of Internet History: Duke to shut Usenet server, home to the first electronic newsgroups
Brand-new research: Vast increase MRSA, CA-MRSA diagnoses among kids
CREDIBILITY
Troubling New Research on MRSA in Kids
Knowledge and Use of…
May 19, 2010
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't usually something I discuss here, but Peter Beinart's surprisingly on-target NY Review of Books essay, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" is an incredibly accurate description of the self-appointed American Jewish 'leadership' and their…
May 18, 2010
Happy Tuesday. Links for you. Science:
Scientists forecast decades of ash clouds: Many more of Iceland's volcanoes seem to be stirring
Some NIH grants should fail
The History of How Women Came to Serve on Study Section
How Will They Spin This?
Other:
Shovel Ready
Sure, I like my Keynesianism…
May 18, 2010
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been catching up on my science reading, and that's reminded me just how much I hate it when journal articles refer to supplemental materials. I'm not bothered when tables that used to go in what we old-timers once called appendices wind up in supplemental…
May 17, 2010
One of my favorite bloggers and ScienceBloglings, Revere, is leaving blogging.
It was a great run. Stop by and leave some kind words.
May 17, 2010
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that our entire political class (both politicians and the mandarin hangers-on) still does not comprehend that the balance of accounts must sum to zero. That is, aggregate savings (all the stuff private entities, from corporations to individuals to…
May 16, 2010
Happy Sunny Sunday! Links fahr ya. Science:
The Sequencers
Working 10 Hours or More a Day Raises Heart Risk, Study Finds
Walking and Obesity: The City Life vs the Country Life
Why Spiders Always Eat Ants By Starting With The Head
Life on Earth Arose Just Once
Other:
Pecunia Emptor
How to Save the…
May 15, 2010
You might have heard by now about the True Republican PAC television ad for the Republican gubernatorial primary in Alabama that attacks one Republican candidate, Bradley Byrne, for supporting evolution (TEH DARWINISMZ! AIIEEE!!!). As far as I can tell Byrne is a 'moderate' in that he thinks both…
May 14, 2010
The COMPETES Act renewal, which would provide additional funding for scientific research and education, and is targeted towards technological development and commercialization was dealt a blow yesterday as Republicans pulled more obstructionist crap. Before the Republican Party was completely…
May 13, 2010
And demoralized too. Ian Welsh:
...for most of a year, everyone's energy was completely sucked into the never-ending health care debate, and many progressives regarded how it ended up as a demoralizing defeat, a defeat made worse by the fact that it was a betrayal from what many thought was "our…